Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Digital news continues to evolve, pushed by a variety of innovations in recent years, from groundbreaking new technologies like virtual reality and automated reporting to experiments on social platforms that have altered campaign coverage.

As journalists and media practitioners gather for the annual Online News Association Conference, here are 10 key findings from recent Pew Research Center surveys and analyses that show how these rapid digital shifts are reshaping Americans’ news habits...

Figures released by the publication show that its social media following has grown by 44% over the last year to a total of 35.6 million. The Economist claimed this is more than any other major media brand except for The New York Times.

The Economist’s Twitter followers increased 64% to 15.7 million year-on-year between July and December 2015, while its Facebook likes grew 25% to 7.6 million and its LinkedIn group members increased by 222% to 1.4 million over the same period.

In 2015 the brand saw a 13% year-on-year rise in gross profit from its circulation business, which in part was due to culling discounted copies and attracting more subscribers who paid a premium for a bundle of print and digital editions. However, the brand’s social channels have also been a “critical component”, according to Michael Brunt, chief marketing officer and managing director of circulation at The Economist....

In a study titled “The New Normal for News,”Oriella PR Network surveyed more than 500 journalists spanning 14 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US).

The main finding? Digital media is more entrenched than ever before.

Oriella’s Global Digital Journalism Study 2013, the organization’s sixth annual investigation into the role and impact of digital media in newsrooms and news-gathering worldwide, reveals some interesting insights about tech age journalists. A few poignant highlights...

A majority of U.S. adults – 62% – get news on social media, and 18% do so often, according to a new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In 2012, based on a slightly different question, 49% of U.S. adults reported seeing news on social media.1

But which social media sites have the largest portion of users getting news there? How many get news on multiple social media sites? And to what degree are these news consumers seeking online news out versus happening upon it while doing other things?

As part of an ongoing examination of social media and news, Pew Research Center analyzed the scope and characteristics of social media news consumers across nine social networking sites. This study is based on a survey conducted Jan. 12-Feb. 8, 2016, with 4,654 members of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel.

News plays a varying role across the social networking sites studied.2 Two-thirds of Facebook users (66%) get news on the site, nearly six-in-ten Twitter users (59%) get news on Twitter, and seven-in-ten Reddit users get news on that platform. On Tumblr, the figure sits at 31%, while for the other five social networking sites it is true of only about one-fifth or less of their user bases....

The grizzled vet and the digital native: Journalism has plenty of room for both to succeed. I spent eight years at AOL and I'll say this: I saw none of the great, all of the bad and some of the good. ...

The blood sport during my AOL days was about the future of media companies — who would or wouldn’t survive the digital onslaught. Actually, it was much the same during my time at Newsweek in the 80s (who needed three newsweeklies in a broadcast world). Ditto when I joined The New York Times in the 70s (was the city big enough for both The Post and Daily News). Now, the social Web with its echo chamber turns up the volume daily — and makes it more personal, too.

It’s far more about the fate of the individual journalist. That quickly gets down to the paycheck. Will there be one? How much? Who gets it — the “professional” or the pretender? Consumer demand for credible news and information is greater than ever. The problem is the 100-year-old model for producing it is forever broken. That’s why more attention must be paid to finding new ways to produce quality journalism — efficiently, at scale and at a price supported by mobile CPMs, which at best are 50% lower than desktop CPMs, which if you’re lucky come in two-thirds lower than print CPMs.

In other words, a high-cost newsroom structure built for the print age will never work in a smartphone or tablet world. A few startups are experimenting with new models — Vox Media, Machinima, Bleacher Report and Storify are a few that I follow. Among traditional media companies, FORBES is the only one I know of charting a new course....